Background
Light rail transit evolved from streetcar technology. Electric streetcars dominated urban transit in just about every significant city up through World War II. But once the war was over, “old-fashioned” trolley lines were converted to bus operation in droves, all in the name of “modernization.” By 1965, only a handful of legacy streetcar systems still survived.
The genesis of the terminology “light rail transit” dates to the late 1960s when planning efforts were underway at what was then called the Urban Mass Transit Administration (today’s Federal Transit Administration) to procure new vehicles for legacy trolley lines in Boston and San Francisco. The principals working on that program recognized that, because of the wholesale abandonment of streetcar lines in the previous two decades, the words “streetcar” and “trolley” had stigmas with likely negative political consequences for the program. Therefore, the term “light rail vehicle” was coined, borrowing from British vernacular.
